Main navigation

Animal Welfare

Perween Rahman was a huge animal lover with a soft spot for homeless strays. She was also very helpful to PAWS and a mentor we looked to for guidance. Furthermore, she had offered to help us set up a humane stray dog management pilot project in Orangi.

On March 13th this year she was murdered by armed assailants when returning home from work. Her death is a tragic loss to humanity and a big blow for PAWS, both personally and professionally. However we are encouraged by her example to work relentlessly and undeterred by obstacles, and her immense optimism that could find reason for hope in the most dismal situation, thereby turning it around.

We request our well-wishers to please support Perween’s Justice page and help spread the word. Do ‘like’ it and share with friends, family and colleagues.

Share this:

“Why waste time on animal rights when humans don’t get their rights here?” is the usual response to the idea of animal welfare or animal rights in Pakistan. Meanwhile, animal lovers and activists strive to change the mindset that makes both these issues mutually exclusive.

Share this:

Carol Noreen is an animal lover. A school principal by profession, everyday, she puts on a big cooking pot of dog and cat food on her stove. The idea is to provide food to owners who cannot afford to feed their animals. One such owner is her watchman who has adopted a stray cat.

“I cook food for the animals myself, I do not like to leave this job to my servants,” she says.

Noreen volunteers for Pakistan Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), and has rescued several strays. She shares one such instance when she saw an injured dog, at PIA Colony, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, while going to work. Since she could not rescue it all alone she called up her team for help. The vet in the team, sedated the dog, and took it for treatment.

All creatures on earth are sentient beings. There is not an animal on earth, nor a bird that flies on its wings – but they are communities like you.

The Quran 6:38

Swiss animal rights lawyer, Antoine Goetschel, recently made international news when he defended a dead pike in a case of cruelty by a local fisherman who was overheard boasting about landing the fish after a ten minute long struggle. The basis of his argument was that fish are sentient beings and that the fisherman had caused the pike needless pain. Islam is a religion where the sentience of all animals has been declared in the Quran. However, the expected application of such a belief is sadly amiss in Pakistani society. In fact, many of the most vocal advocates for animal rights in the history of Pakistan have been non-Muslim. [Read more…] about Sentient Beings